Faisal, the Chairman of the board of director of King Faisal research and Islamic studies center and who is the Honorary President of the Saudi publishers society, highlighted the great attention given by King Abdullah to the cultural sector. He noted that according to a report released by the Arab Thought Organization in 2007 that there is only one book for each 12000 Arab citizens, while there is one book for each Britons and one book for each 900 Germans. Prince Turki said the average of reading in the Arab world does not exceed four percent compared to the average of reading in England. This issues needs an elaborated study, he said. Prince Turki urged all concerned parties to conduct an accurate statistics on the production of the printed Arab thought effective from 2010, he said adding that this issue should be given a great attention by the Arab publishers union and the regional unions. He pointed out that according to the records of King Fahd National Library, 5226 titles were registered in 1429. As regards the number of deposited books, Prince Turki said their number was 2662, noting that difference between the deposited and registered books amounted to 2564. He noted that in 1428, the number of registered books was 5391 titles while the deposited books was 2979 titles, which means that difference between the registered and deposited books was 2412 titles. --more
